AFTER DEVASTATING HEAD INJURIES KEIRON IS WALKING, TALKING... AND RAPPING AGAIN

ASTUDENT who lost the ability to speak after a life-threatening car crash has not only taught himself to talk again – but rap! Keiron Farr suffered devastating head injuries in August 2013 and for a while it was touch and go whether he would pull through.

Thankfully the 22-year-old is rebuilding his life and studying performing arts at Bridgend College.

Keiron wrote and recorded hiphop songs before the accident.

Now his speech has improved to the point where he has been able to return to the studio to record A New Chapter, describing the traumatic events in unflinching detail.

The “studio” was in fact a speech therapy room at Neath Port Talbot Hospital – the hospital where Kei- ron spent months recovering following emergency surgery.

“I shattered the front of my skull, broke four vertebrae in my neck and sustained a traumatic brain injury,” said Keiron, who lives with parents Denise and Tony Farr in Brackla, Bridgend, and has a brother and sister.

“I was in a coma for seven or eight weeks. I couldn’t walk or talk, eat or drink, and was fed and hydrated through a tube up my nose.”

Keiron was initially taken to Princess of Wales Hospital in Bridgend, then transferred to Cardiff’s University Hospital of Wales for surgery.

Mum Denise said: “He had part of his skull removed to relieve pressure. Shards had gone into his brain so he had part of his brain taken out, too.”

The following month Keiron was transferred to the specialist neurorehabilitation ward at Neath Port Talbot Hospital.

He said: “I had to learn to walk again, which was particularly difficult.”

While he was on the ward, Keiron underwent speech therapy, physiotherapy and occupational therapy.

After he was well enough to go home that December, he continued therapy with Abertawe Bro Morgannwg University Health Board’s traumatic brain injury service.

TBIS offers tailor-made rehabilitation programmes for people with moderate to severe e brain injuries caused by trauma such as assaults and car crashes. It has also developed community projects. One was a project with Mumbles-based Learn Thru Music,c, which saw a group of patients write and record their own song. Keiron iron was among them, having foughtght tirelessly to regain and improvee his speech.

Every year TBIS hosts a Christmas party. For last st year’s Keiron was asked to record d a new track.

He wrote A New w Chapter, with Learn Thru Music course tutor Simon Parton composing sing the music.

TBIS specialist speech peech and language therapist Hannah Davies said: “Life after brain ain injury isn’t exactly the same but there is a quality of life you canan find.”

Keiron said: “Musicsic was, and still is, my passion.””